Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Thursday March 12, 2009 @08:39AM
from the probably-should-try-that-out-again dept.

Some anonymous person wrote in to say that Google has relaunched and rebranded GrandCentral as "Google Voice." The article says it will "revolutionize telephones. It unifies your phone numbers, transcribes your voice mail, blocks telemarketers and elevates text messages to first-class communication citizens." Sadly, the voicemail didn't integrate very nicely w/ my phone back in the day, so I guess I should give it a shot.

I don't know, I'm becoming more and more wary about all the personal information Google is acquiring, and this is another area where Google is able to collect and store such information. Gmail, Calendar, Blogger, Desktop and now essentially, Phone Manager. The way things are going, soon Google will will be able to set your alarm clock for you without your direct input. They'll just know what time you need to wake up and voila.

I use Google calendar to send me an SMS reminder each morning. I've set my phone up to play an alarm call for these SMS messages from Google - voila, a Google alarm clock.
I just need to work out how to schedule the coffee maker and toaster and I'm all set...

While that's cool I find the "alarm" function on my phone a bit easier...

Probably more reliable too - SMS is like email - there's no guarantee in how long it'll take to get to the destination (or if it even gets there at all). The day you need your SMS-alarm to wake you up, is probably the day the SMS network gets slightly overloaded. (I've seen SMS' take days to arrive, and have heard of the oddball SMS duplication - where the same SMS was stuck in the system, and the recipient kept getting it twice an hour for 3 days straight).

I don't know, I'm becoming more and more wary about all the personal information Google is acquiring, and this is another area where Google is able to collect and store such information. Gmail, Calendar, Blogger, Desktop and now essentially, Phone Manager. The way things are going, soon Google will will be able to set your alarm clock for you without your direct input. They'll just know what time you need to wake up and voila.

I totally agree, but I'm also looking forward to this. it's a hate-love-relationship. I really hate and abhor the fact, that there's a company out there gathering such immense amounts of data on everyone - for the company's gain, not the public's. On the flip side, I'm truly envious of the quantity, quality and accuracy of their statistical data. I love that this data will enable them all kinds of awesomely cool stuff. I hate that they're essentially using that information to exploit their users.
it starts off nice and clean with direct and targetted advertising, which by itself might actually be helpful and not bore people with ads that don't have any relevancy to them. But if we project and exaggerate their prowess, we get to a stage where google can directly and on a massive scale, manipulate markets and behaviour.

I get to say "nope, you can't have that" if someone asks rather than getting a letter saying "Oh by the by, someone came by with a Subpoena and we gave them all your voicemails/text messages for the past 3 years...".

As much as I think you are being overly paranoid (who with the power of subpoena cares about your voice mail - and if they do, they can just as well take your Asterisk box anyway) - but GrandCentral voicemail is extremely easy to hack into by ANYONE. All you need to know is the GC number and the person's actual number and you can listen to their voicemail anytime. I really hope that this is one of the first things they fix as they migrate to "Google Voice".

I promise I'm not showing off, but I have a question for other existing GC users out there:I'm supposed to be able to "upgrade" to Google Voice if I have an existing GC account, but I don't seem to be able to do so.This is on the Google Voice info page [google.com]:

What do I do if I am already a GrandCentral user?To upgrade to Google Voice, sign in to your GrandCentral account and follow the instructions at the top of your inbox.

But when I sign in to my GC Inbox, I do not see any instructions at the top. Have they just not been put up yet?

Yes--the instructions just weren't there yet. Someone at Google jumped the gun on that info page. The instructions are now there--it consists of clicking on a button that says "Upgrade me" and then signing in to your google account.

Maybe Google gave it up for undisclosed cash to Apple since they are using the same term for a new type of multicore support in Snow Leopard. Eric Schmidt sits on Apple's board. Crazier things have happened.

Maybe Google gave [up the term "GrandCentral"] for undisclosed cash to Apple since they are using the same term for a new type of multicore support in Snow Leopard

I think this has more to do with branding. Google likes to put their name in products they take over. "GrandCentral" doesn't sound like a Google product. "Google Voice" does (and tells you roughly what it's all about). When Google bought Keyhole [wikipedia.org], they re-branded the product "Google Earth".

In fact take a look at this list of Google acquisitions [wikipedia.org]. Most of them were re-branded by Google, and most of the new names contain "Google" in them (with limited exceptions, like AdSense, which has a strong brand of its own).

For something like YouTube, they didn't change the name since it already had a strong brand and following. But GrandCentral? It didn't have a huge following or mindshare. So rebranding it just makes sense. I doubt Apple had anything to do with it.

"Thank you for leaving your message. Our content parsing algorithm has found that you were calling about 'were you Thursday night I saw you with her!' Would you like to hear some targeted advertisments for singles websites? We've automatically updated the contextual advertising database to reflect on the recipient's possible need for STD testing."

Last I heard all their features were free, but I kinda felt bad because I knew the ones I liked could disappear at any time because that was what they said the plan was after they left beta.All features would be free during the beta, and then they said the "core" ones would be free after that with the rest being paid.

I don't want a revolutionary new phone - the basic idea of the telephone was got pretty much spot on in the 19th century - talk into mic , listen from earpiece. What I want is a phone service thats reliable , cheap and works in an emergency. What I DO NOT want is a phone service that gives me a friggin "select from the following options" load of BS when I lift up the receiver! I have enough of that crap when phoning help desks. As for listening in when someone leaves a message - wooooo! Someone correct me but I believe you've been able to do that with steam powered cassette based answerphones since the 1970s.

While I agree with you on the "select from the following options" comment, the real benefit for me with GrandCentral is the phone aggregation feature. I don't have to keep telling my family and friends a new phone number, and I can have calls ring at any and all of my various phones (home, work, cell, skype). Is that "revolutionary"? I suppose so.

The phone number aggregation thing is not exactly new. If you have a Vonage account, you can already do that. Vonage calls this feature 'SimulRing'. When someone calls your Vonage phone, it will simultaneously ring up to 5 phone numbers of your choosing (home, work, cell, etc.).

What I want to know is, is GrandCentral/Google Voice better?

GrandCentral doesn't require you to subscribe to a VoiP service, and it's free. I have DSL, which requires a landline. It's not cost effective for me to switch to a cell/V

How GrandCentral handles the cell phone dead battery voicemail problem you described is it requires you to press 1 to accept the incoming call. That way it never gets picked up by your answering machine.

You, the person who is being rang, needs to pick up the phone, and press "1" to accept the call on the specific phone. Your voicemail isn't going to push "1", so your voicemail wont get the call. Simple. If you, the person receiving the call, does not push "1", GrandCentral/Google will handle the call as if it was never picked up.

I've never had a Grand Central call go to any of my other voicemails. I set my work phone to go straight to voicemail if I'll be off for a few days. It keeps ringing on my cell and it doesn't leave a message on voicemail.

You can set up groups and route certain groups to certain phones. Friends/Family/Work/Other/Spam are the defaults. There is a "custom" but I've yet to play with that. You can also play a different greeting and have a different ringer(what the caller hears) per group.

Really? I didn't know that steam powered cassette based answerphones would let you listen in on a voicemail to your home line even though you were in the office. Like they always say...you learn something new every day.

What I DO NOT want is a phone service that gives me a friggin "select from the following options" load of BS when I lift up the receiver

Good news. If you had RTFA you would have read the part where it says this is optional.

Google Voice eliminates some of the annoyances of its predecessor. You can, if you wish, turn off that âoepress 1, press 2â option, so when the phone rings, you can just pick it up and start talking.

yet you didn't seem to know it said that. And as that article indicated that this feature existed (in mandatory form, as suggested by that quote) on the old GrandCentral service, then you wouldn't have needed to be "clairevoyant" to know...you'd just need to be fa

Wait, so your complaint is that you don't care whether or not you ever have to use or experience a feature, you simply don't want the feature to exist in any form whatsoever? So like, for example, if you didn't like javascript, then even though Firefox lets you disable javascript completely, you wouldn't want to use Firefox because of that? Wow.

P.S. If your are going to be a jackass and keep referring to me as a Muppet (which doesn't seem to make any sense), then can you at least give me the dignity of bein

"disable javascript completely, you wouldn't want to use Firefox because of that? Wow"

Not bright are you. If firefox was new and had some feature I thought was pointless and potentially irritating then yes, I'd probably say I don't want it or see the point of it. Ok? Is your hole deep enough now or do you need a spade?

"me as a Muppet (which doesn't seem to make any sense)"

Oh FFS, its common slang for an idiot in most of the english speaking world.

So a hand cranked phone you yell into while stanf right in front of it was the pinnicle of telephones? really?

First off, you are making a mistake in limiting what a phone is. I suspect you haven't actually grokked that it is just a way of communication. Now we have lots of ways to communicate at a distance. Talking with someone in real time is just one of them.

I can't think of any cell that isn't reliable and works in an emergency. Ironically, during black out in December, I used my G1 as a flashlight to fi

Since Caller ID has become virtually useless for identifying anyone other than friends and family (it is regularly blocked or spoofed), it would be nice if Google Voice gave you the option to view the ANI info (which is what is used internally by the phone systems for billing and E-911, and is generally considered unspoofable). I've been waiting for someone to do so for a long time.

I'm not quite sure why this is modded as funny, since CallerID and ANI ("Automatic Number Identification") are actually two separate elements of a call as noted above. ANI is a built in signaling component of SS7 that generally cannot be modified by the calling party. See definition here. [bandwidth.com]

Still, although ANI may not be "spoofable," it can be manipulated or uninformative. For example, any call placed from any phone in my office carries a general company ANI even though the call could be originated from any of hundreds of phone numbers owned by the firm. We also have off-premise extensions (OPXs) that connect to the office PBX via SIP. Calls placed from those OPXs have the same ANI as calls made from the physical office, which would be deleterious if a call was placed to 911 from one of these phone. (We have implemented a safety workaround for this, but the point still stands.)

Since Caller ID has become virtually useless for identifying anyone other than friends and family (it is regularly blocked or spoofed)

That's why it works for me. If a name shows up I answer the phone. If it's a number they can kiss my ass, I have a cell phone and pay by the minute and I'm not going to pay to be talked to by some random stranger.

I was under the impression that the reason for the E-911 problems was not because there was no ANI data (or incorrect data), but because the ANI data alone wasn't sufficient to identify the caller's location. In order for that to work, they need to be able to export the address from their account information and have it imported into the E-911 system.

Even if you don't have access to that extra info, you still have the ANI info (which is more like a unique key), which you can then use to identify future call

I have a few different accounts with a European VoIP provider that I use for calls to the USA. I can customize the CID but they all send the same ANI (some random out-of-service number, but it's the same every time). So in this case (which I am sure is not unique), the CID is actually more informative. It doesn't say anything useful about my location but at least it identifies me in some way, rather than only identifying my telephone company.

"Sadly, the voicemail didn't integrate very nicely w/ my phone back in the day, so I guess I should give it a shot."

What's different between that and, "Sadly, Windows didn't work well for me in 2002, so I guess I should try Windows 7?" Or "Sadly, I hated my Nissan Altima from 2004, so my next purchase should be an Altima from 2009?"

I'm not saying your shouldn't try it out, but that sentence reads like a big fat non sequitur.

"Sadly, the voicemail didn't integrate very nicely w/ my phone back in the day, so I guess I should give it a shot."

What's different between that and, "Sadly, Windows didn't work well for me in 2002, so I guess I should try Windows 7?" Or "Sadly, I hated my Nissan Altima from 2004, so my next purchase should be an Altima from 2009?"

I'm not saying your shouldn't try it out, but that sentence reads like a big fat non sequitur.

Actually, it would be more like, "I loved Windows 3.11, but it didn't connect to the Internet well. Maybe I'll give XP a shot."

It's not that he didn't like the system. One feature did not work well for him. That feature was a deal breaker. Now that a new version is out, he's hoping that one feature will work so he can benefit from the rest.

I've had a GrandCentral account for years, never used it. First thing I did today was login and search the help for "port number". As it has said for the past few years:

"Although you can't currently port your existing number to GrandCentral, we hope to offer this option in the near future. Check out our blog to stay up-to-date with GrandCentral news and learn about new features."

If I have to give the people who call me a new number, it's not worth it. Maybe if I was moving and was getting a new number anyway ( though cell phones and Vonage don't require this ), then I'd use it.

Your other option would be to use phone services that allow you to set your caller-ID number. Most non-consumer VOIP services allow this. Google has an app for android which allows you to use your GrandCentral number as your caller ID.

However, none of this avoids the need to port my number. Sure, I understand the idea is that I don't give everybody my direct numbers and instead give them the GrandCentral number. However, the problem is that I've ALREADY given out these numbers and would just as soon hav

I've been on GrandCentral for a year now, and thus far, it's been great for filtering many calls I don't care to receive much. Anytime I started a new service (cable, credit card, etc), I just tell them my GC number. Now, I don't waste my time with Comcast calling to try and tell me it's "only" $130 to add internet phone to my cable bill, or Best Buy calling me every day to say I haven't spent my $5 reward zone coupon. Hell, once I get converted and can just get text message transcripts, I'll be in heave

Exactly! We use our GrandCentral number when companies ask for our phone number. (Especially if the company is an online outfit that we're not sure we trust 100%.) If the company decides to tele-spam us (or sell our number to a company that tele-spams us), it's pretty easy to deal with them. Just mark those callers as "spam" and you won't be hearing from them again.

I quite literally used my invite to GC yesterday expecting to use it as is. I'm totally thrilled to see it becoming something even greater!

There is an app for Android called "G1 Central" -- it integrates well with the G1. Hopefully Google will release an even better app or, better yet, integrate Voice with the entire dialing, contacts, and voice mail system. I'm sure T-Mobile would love to have the load off!

I'll admit it - I still have a landline phone in my house. My satellite receivers require it, my DSL service requires the line, I feel better knowing it's there in case of an emergency, AND it keeps my teenagers from using up all of our shared cell minutes (the boy used 2700 minutes all by himself last month). In spite of these reasons, I was growing to hate that phone. We get maybe 2 legit calls on that phone a month, the rest are all telemarketers, a dozen a day sometimes, almost always between 6:00pm-9:00pm. It was driving me nuts.

Along comes GrandCentral. Now, my home number is call-forwarded to GrandCentral. From there, I've whitelisted the numbers that are allowed to call us. Some of those numbers ring my cell, some ring my wife's, some ring both. Everything else goes to voicemail or is blocked as spam. Blocked callers hear a "number not in service" message. Voicemails are sent to us as emails.

Very slick, VERY convenient, and it's removed a serious annoyance. Bliss...

" I was growing to hate that phone. We get maybe 2 legit calls on that phone a month, the rest are all telemarketers, a dozen a day sometimes, almost always between 6:00pm-9:00pm. It was driving me nuts.

So why didn't you sign up with the Do Not Call Registry?

Also, you can record the "sit" tones - the 3-tone "number not in service" tones that you hear - onto your answering machine, and the telemarketers predictive auto-dialer will hang up. As an added bonus, if someone calls you long-distance, they can stil

I *am* on the DNC... I'm using a broad definition of "telemarketer". I get calls from various charities seeking donations, "we'll be in your neighborhood tomorrow". I get scam calls telling me that my car warranty is about to expire, or trying to get me to subscribed to my local newspaper. There was the election spam during the month of October. The list goes on and on, but the bottom line is, I used to get a LOT of annoying, pointless phone calls - those all stopped thanks to GrandCentral.

I'm on the DNC list (since day 1) and it worked nearly perfectly for several years, but now I'm starting to get more callers. I think people are starting to catch onto the fact that their chances of getting any sort of punushment is almost zero. After this many years, only a few dozen telemarketers have been fined. Most businesses don't seem to care because they know they aren't big enough to catch the attention of the FTC.

They are now listening in and converting Voice to Text. I suspect that they are using an AI to figure out the heurestics of converting voice to Text. At some point, that will be useful in a number of new areas. Not just better transcription, but will be EXTREMELY useful for selling products to the Feds. Want to know exactly what Abdula is saying to his Cousin Obama in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? Of course, that will lead to new translators as well. It could convert nicely from Arabic to English.

Better yet, with newer technology that can track variances in the voice to determine if there is a high probability of lies in the statement can I sign up for a flag that would say "This person is probably lying to you in this voicemail" ?

So, now instead of listening to 3 different phone numbers for one person, the NSA simply has to listen to one, or just play the calls back later at their convenience. It's PERFECT!/I am not currently a tinfoil subscriber, I just channel their logic sometimes.

Does not matter to us. Bush said that we could listen to all conversations and we do.

With that said, you do not have to tell all your friends about this. And yes, your mom went on to tell Harriet, her new beautician that you are sounding more and more tin foilish. Our suggestion is that you drop such silly conversations.

How does google plan to make money off of this? TFA mentions that they'll be transcribing voicemail to text in near real-time. Will they also be sifting those voicemails for marketing keywords? If my buddy calls to brag about his new car, will I be seeing BMW ads next time I log into gmail?

*Pulling the tinfoil hat even lower over the brow now* Will Google Talk also have the ability to monitor calls made through their service for marketing info?
Yeah, it sounds like a great service, but what's the cost in privacy?

As for the cost of the phone system itself, GrandCentral's money-making plan was very simple, actually. All telcos charge you to make calls to numbers on their network. This is why so many networks have voice mail prompts that are so stinking long. "Press * if you want to page this person, or press 5 to leave them a message, or just wait for the tone." It's all designed to keep callers on the line longer so they can charge them more. Of course American cell companies double-dip,

You can toggle any given phone on or off at any time from the web interface. If you forget your cell phone, turn it off when you get to work. Turn off your work phone and turn on your cell phone when it's lunchtime and you are away from your desk. That's just one more advantage of GrandCentral, people can still reach you in such situations without trying every contact number they have.

It'd be nice if I could give different users different priority levels, too...

For instance, my wife could have a PANIC button that she could push, that'd make Google Voice do everything it can to reach me - call all the phones, etc. While normally, she just gets "normal" priority...

What about video? We've been told we'd have video phones for as long as we've been promised flying cars. Seriously, how hard would it be to integrate video into this phone system?

OK, sure there are hardware and protocol requirements. But nearly any current "chat" service offers video. Even if you didn't want to do this directly from you computer, Google could sell or license phones that connect directly to your wireless router that have a small screen and camera. They could even sell a device that connec

Who wants video phones? There are really only two times that I use (or want to use) video calling:

1. Very occasionally, for remote meetings with colleagues that I know well and like, mainly because it is amusing and allows us to connect after not working side-by-side for a long time.

2. When dealing with tiny kids at a long distance.

Other than that, it's awful. I hate it for ordinary business calls because I can't read email, munch on raisins, pick my nose, stare out the window, or whatever else I'd normally do. And I've never felt like I want to see my friends when calling them.

Assuming I'm not too terribly odd in this regard, the market for video is probably limited.

My question would be how well it will integrate with the andriod phones and specifically the G1. Can I have/build/get an app that will see it's from GrandCentral and prompt me on screen with the appropriate choices rather than a voice menu?

Also, can my phone use it's settings for things like "route straight to voicemail" to handle the incoming calls for me?

Ah, another Google service that might one day disappear because Google don't think it's valuable enough.

That's true of every service, from every company, whether its in Beta or not. The only "guarantee" you have is with a contract, and only for the life of the contract, and even then its just them weighing the cost of buying off your contract or suffering an action for breach if you refuse to be bought off against the cost of maintaining the service that is not valuable to them.

I setup my GC account a year or more ago. It's pretty slick for the most part. I have GC forward my incoming calls to my free Gizmo (http://gizmo5.com/pc/) SIP soft phone or SIP desk phone depending on whether I'm on the road or at my home office. For my friends I also have it ring my cellphone/homephone.

I was also able to have GC import my Outlook address book (before they removed the feature) so all my contacts are already loaded.

The nice part is that ALL calls are in-bound to me (so far) so I essen

And I find it really useful. I commonly have about 15 voicemails on average, and its really useful to see them all visually, what numbers they came in on, and skip thru the playback of the messages themselves.

The other feature that I like is that the caller has to state their name when they call. Grandcentral calls me, tells me the name the person stated, then I have these options:

1 Pick up the call2 Send to voicemail3 Send to voicemail and listen to the message as the caller leaves it

This seems like a really great service. But remember that Google is public about the fact that they crawl through your data so that they can profit from it. Email is bad enough, but why anyone would send their whole life streaming through Google is beyond me. It continues to surprise me how comfortable and trusting people are getting with the cloud.

I have a home land line, a work land line (mandatory), a work cell, and a home cell. My wife has a cell and my daughter has a cell.

I can, depending on the caller ID (and I'm talking about reliable ones from people I know -- like my boss) have GC ring all of my phones, just my phones, just me work phones, just my home phones, my daughter's phone, or just about any combination I want.

Or no phone at all.

I suggest it for anyone who deals with clients and wants their number to remain the same after they leave a job. Get a GC number and put it on your business cards. Link up your cell and your desk phone. Leave the job, keep the cards, your clients may not even know the difference.

To simplify, number portability makes this concept completely moot, and proprietary packages/offerings is a "bullet to the brain."

Phone numbers aren't like email systems... users don't set-up lots of aliases, or have fractured paths that need to be reconciled (at least not most users). At the same time, the move to mobile and the ability to take your number with you means that everyone is already converging around a single number scheme.

Basically we're all going to end up with a single phone that is also o

What do I do if I am already a GrandCentral user?
To upgrade to Google Voice, sign in to your GrandCentral account and follow the instructions at the top of your inbox.

I have nothing in my Grandcentral inbox though. I wonder if it's just delayed and I am impatient, or are they picking and choosing? I will check back later today. The SMS feature is a MUST HAVE for me.

It would be nice if google used this service as a way to ween people off of the whole POTS style phone numbers forever. I think that something more like voice://[identity]@[company] makes much more sense in the long run.

When someone calls my google voice number, it could redirect the call to my google talk, skype, personal sip server, or even fall back to a landline or cell number if able. Then when I need to contact someone inside the POTS network, it would be nice if there was a way to multiplex back ou

Skype In: You sign up and get to choose a number from a laundry list of countries. Some require that you're actually a resident and you have to prove it, but some, such as the UK (last I checked anyway) don't require you to be a resident. I had one for a while. It's not that much per year and works anywhere Skype does. I don't think it uses up any Skype minutes unless you forward it to a real phone.

Magic jack: Same deal as Skype In, but you plug in a regular phone to it and it just works, like magic! I thin

It has not rolled out to all users yet (as of 3/12 in the AM), similar to when they add new features to GMail it appears that it has to roll through the network. I confirmed this in my own Grand Central account.

I was just thinking the same thing - Google is in many ways an engine of innovation, and they bring a lot of cash to bear on a problem. But as you suggest, the same was true of Microsoft in the late 80s and early 90s. The only real difference is attitude, and attitudes change.

As someone who makes use of Google's services, I think this is great, but I can't help but wonder whether this is ultimately stifling advancement in the field. Google doesn't NEED to innovate in voice, it just WANTS to. In some ways, that results in a better product: they take risks a small software house dares not. But they're not as committed to innovating, and they drive a lot of people out of the market. Gmail is a great service, and Google continues to do new and interesting things. But I haven't seen a single new webmail service since Gmail went live, and that's a little worrisome.

As a software developer, I used to worry that Microsoft might find my particular niche potentially profitable. Now I worry that Google might think it's cool.

That reminds me of a quote from Sid Meier's Aplha Centauri by entrepreneur Nwabudike Morgan: "We are not a monopoly. Our product is simply so good that no one chooses to compete with us."

I'm not terribly concerned about Google, to be honest. I know they have a lot of my personal data. But they provide high quality products/services and don't treat me like shit. They're reliable and friendly and trustworthy. Microsoft, on the other hand, has always been shifty in one way or another, and their products have always seemed only partially baked and ready.

In addition to that point, they aren't TAKING any personal information from you against your will. You have to consciously provide it. As long as you don't provide them with anything you don't want getting out there and until they suddenly start hacking and stealing information from us, I don't see what the big problem is. Google is still optional, save the complaining for when it isn't.

I signed up for GrandCentral back when it was pretty new, but I never really used it for the sole reason that I had to be at my computer to get my voice mails. If I was wandering around and just barely miss a call, I don't know who it was and what's more (if I recall correctly) I don't know who was calling either, because it's the "GrandCentral" number that comes into your phone.

While I think you're right that it *used* to be that way, and that it still *defaults* that way, for some time (at least a year?), Grand Central has had a Caller ID option in their settings tab where you can chose, a la:

"What Caller ID do you want us to display when GrandCentral calls your forwarding phones?

Display Caller's number; I will know who's calling before picking up (default)

Display my GrandCentral number; I will know if the call came through my GrandCentral number"

because I didn't hand out the number to anyone, I would freak out when once in a blue moon someone would call that number by accident and both my phones would ring at once. I don't know if this stuff has been addressed since google took over

Yes, Google has addressed this. They now send someone to your house to inject you with valium just before the phone rings, so you don't freak out.

I'm a Vonage user. Yes, they do partially do this, but in a MUCH more limited way.

1) There is no option that I know of to screen the calls via voicemail.2) They don't have any useful way of blocking callers (you can block anonymous, but thats it)3) The system isn't configurable to forward/simulring individual numbers differently. I find this to be a problem. I have my home (vonage) number simulring my cell phone. Problem is, when I'm trying to call my wife at home, the phone at home ring once, then the simu